Bundle of Blue
by AlissonLoon
Summary: There is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire, yet there must be one more; the dragon has three heads. She grows from the chink in a wall of ice, and she fills the air with sweetness. Lady Rosemary of the Riverrlands escapes a life not meant for her; she trades a throne for a saddle, a million hands for the arms of Jon Snow. (OC x Jon Snow)
1. Chapter 1

**ROSEMARY**

She hadn't the slightest idea where to go; nor had she the slightest idea which region of the north she was in. The ground beneath her feet which sullied the pale blue hem of her dress was looked to for an answer, but it failed to provide. Rosemary was not well-versed in the art of tracking; she could not sniff the bitter breeze and determine what was the nearest city, but she could discern that she was quite far north by the cruelty of the wind on her swanlike, pearled neck and the aridity of the black soil beneath her nimble, heeled feet.

 _Perhaps I should not had not run from Ser Crout and Ser Owin… I cannot be on my own in a climate such as this…_ Rosemary thought to herself shortly before clearing the thoughts from her head and replacing them. _I am a Tully; I will not surrender easily._

With a foot as determined as her mindset, Rosemary began walking along the worn path through the wood. Evergreens lent gusts of winter mint to the air, who in turn shook to life the pine trees' rigid needles. Rosemary tightened the fur around her shoulders when a particularly harsh wind loosened several tufts of caramel hair from the braided diadem atop her head. She knew she was not too far north as the city of White Harbor was many lengths south of Winterfell, yet never had she experienced such biting weather. _Have I really spent so little time in the North?_ She thought, shaking her head. She suddenly regretted her lack of travel.

In spite of the adversity posed by the weather, Rosemary persevered—as she always did. Her sense of personal honor could withstand the coldest of snows.

Rosemary continued walking along the path through the wood for several hours. By the time the wood cleared and the smoke of a manmade fire could be seen crawling for the clouds, the tips of her fingers were numb with the chill and her teeth were chattering violently. However, the energy she had lost by the end of her walk felt suddenly reinvigorated by the scent of charred wood tickling the tip of her small nose.

Between the last scattering of trees, Rosemary caught sight of a wider road with the wheels of a carriage imprinted in long brushstrokes through the mud. Beside the road was a lackluster establishment made from the logs of the trees she'd spent several hours walking through. One chimney sat at the right end of the structure's triangular roof and puffed out silver breaths.

Rosemary figured the place could be abandoned, or housing drunken vagrants and villains, or housing an indigent family who would happily return her to Riverrun for a pretty penny; however, she had no choice but to enter as she would freeze to death if she continued through the wood.

The door to the cabin was left diminutively ajar by the last visitors or current occupants, and a minute degree of calamity sounded from the inside. Rosemary heard the laugh of a woman and she sighed quietly in relief. She silently hoped not to walk in upon a family supper as her small foot slipped in between the door and the doorframe.

"An' then she tries to tell me tha' I fell asleep!" The robust voice wrapped around Rosemary's ears as she looked inside the cabin. To her surprise she discovered her dread had been hastily planted—the cabin was a quiet tavern. Only a few guests were inside, dressed in mail and grime, and a handful of barmaids skipped around with rosy cheeks and rosy bosoms.

The man who spoke the loudest was surprisingly small for the deep timbre of his voice. His hair was the color of corn and was tossed about his head messily.

"So I said—maybe if y'didn't just lay there like a damned stiff, I wouldn't'a!"

"Aren't you a bit young to be someplace like this on your own, darling?" A syrupy voice dripped down Rosemary's back. She spun around and met a middle-aged barmaid with two mugs of ale in her hands. Her greying hair was pulled back and loops of braids beside her ears seemed to compliment the undulating lines of age around her eyes and mouth.

"I'm not _that_ young," Rosemary instinctively exaggerated.

"Y'aren't, but y'are for a girl to be out wanderin' on her own. What brought y'ere?"

Rosemary eluded her question: "I was wondering—what is the nearest city from here?"

The woman looked at the ceiling, as though the answer were painted there. "Moat Cailin is not far, but I don't think ya'd have much t'do there. Greywater Watch is some bit down south. Then there's White Harbor—that's just east'a Moat Cailin—"

" _Not_ White Harbor," Rosemary instilled.

The woman looked at her with a furrowed brow. "Fine then… Which direction are you looking t'go?"

Rosemary thought for several moments whilst chewing on the plushy inside of her bottom lips. "North, I suppose."

"Then take the Kingsroad to Winterfell, why don't you!" The woman exclaimed, causing Rosemary to grimace internally.

"How would I get there?"

"Y'got a horse?"

"No."

"Friends with horses?"

"No."

The woman pouted her lips, then shrugged. "Then I've not a clue," she said and walked away to the table of men. She slid their mugs of ale across the uneven table and they cheered. The barmaid seemed happy to do them service, chuckling as they held her right hand and planted wet kisses on her knuckles.

Decisively, Rosemary began taking off her furs. She was about to hang them up on the crooked row of hooks beside the tavern's door that was already adorned with several bloodied capes, but then a voice in her head reminded her that those furs were as expensive as a plot of land in the Reach, and she decided against it. She bundled her furs in her arms and walked toward the open table farthest from that occupied by the soldiers.

As soon as Rosemary sat herself uncomfortably on the lopsided bench, a woman dressed in the same attire as that of the first barmaid came over to her. "Can I help y'with something, missus?" The woman asked. A slight lisp tainted her words; Rosemary assumed it was a result of the coin-sized gap between her two front teeth.

"Just water, if you do not mind."

"O'course!" And she was off.

Rosemary drank her water slowly, sipping tentatively and taking note of every detail of the tavern's interior; she had nothing better to do aside from listening in on the soldiers' bawdy tales. They only acknowledged her when she pulled the hood away from her face. They taunted her momentarily from across the room, asking her to come squeeze between them on the bench they crowded until the middle-aged barmaid told them to leave Rosemary alone.

After at least two hours in the tavern, Rosemary wandered out of the tavern to see if there was anywhere else around. The situation was looking dire until Rosemary heard the neighing of a horse from the backside of the tavern. She scaled the side of the tavern stealthily, making not a sound, until she saw two steeds held at the reins by a young page.

A shred of vengeful wrath simmered in Rosemary's heart when she recalled the catcalls of the soldiers in the tavern, and unsurprisingly Rosemary allowed the coals to set fire to her mind.

The page boy was young, perhaps ten-and-four, and therefore younger than Rosemary. Not only was he young, but also short. Rosemary measured he was several inches shorter than her. His face was round, a bit heavy and ruddy in the cheeks, and curls of flaxen hair around his ears gave him a cherubic countenance.

Dauntingly, Rosemary walked up to him and stared him straight in the eyes—which went wide and baby blue immediately. Rosemary tested the ease of the situation, reaching for the reins of one of the horses he held. The boy immediately began fumbling with the blade in his belt, so Rosemary tightened her fist and swung it in the direction of the boy's plump chin.

 _What a poor page,_ Rosemary thought as the boy flew to the ground.

She grasped the reins of one of the horses and quietly led it around to the front of the tavern. However, her plans were thwarted when the same middle-aged barmaid who had first approached her walked out of the tavern's front door with an empty barrel of ale in her hands.

"And what d'you s'pose you're doing?"

Before Rosemary could throw herself atop the horse and slide her feet into the leather stirrups, the barmaid had Rosemary's small wrist between her sinewy fingers.

"Madam, I've just ran from my cruel husband and I've got nowhere to go," Rosemary pleaded. Rarely did she lie, and when she did she did a poor job, but at that moment she was not taking the chance of revealing her true identity to a struggling barmaid. Rosemary only hoped a woman who'd seen so much of a common life would have empathy for a runaway housewife. "They're just soldiers! They have plenty of horses—"

"Soldiers like'm are the reason places like my tavern ha'n't been burned to the ground yet," she spoke strictly. _Perhaps I've gone about this incorrectly,_ Rosemary thought. "And stealing one'f their horses won't do you no good. Those men'r knights—their horses only take their masters."

"Madam—"

"That being said—the woman of a cruel man's a woman I know," her eyes softened to pale green. "I'll get y'a ride up north, girl, but you've g'to earn it. Do y'know how t'wait a table?"

…

 **JON**

Grenn sliced through the air wildly, his sword heading in no particular direction aside from Jon's head. It was unnecessary for Jon to do anything but step a few inches to the side with every swing, but he figured he might as well swing back in order to teach the man something.

When Grenn swung upwards and leftwards, Jon sliced in the opposite direction, meeting Grenn's dull blade with a satisfying _clang_ of metal on metal. Jon stepped forward quickly, causing the junction of the swords to break and allowing Jon to cut downwards; he pulled the sword out of Grenn's inept grip on the sword.

"Watch my feet—you can see where I'll move," Jon withdrew his sword from its daring position near Grenn's neck. "And tighten your grip," Jon continued as the man swung to the side again and nearly lost the sword as the hilt was so loosely held in his hand.

When Jon leapt backward, he noticed Grenn's glance toward Jon's feet and smiled to himself. Jon had already moved by the time Grenn looked, but the use of Jon's council inspired a sense of success in him. "Good," Jon said as he swung his heavy sword down onto Grenn, who helplessly threw up his wooden shield to block Jon's swing. The man didn't use the safety of his shield to prepare another blow. "Don't waste your time."

Jon noticed Grenn's auburn eyes focused on something behind Jon's head. Jon opened his mouth to command him to stay focused, but his opponent beat him to it: "What in the Seven Hells is _that?_ "

Jon turned around, seeing Alliser Thorne heading into the sparring circle with a rotund and struggling brother behind him. The young man's cheeks shook when he stepped and his mouse-brown hair was stuck to his dewy forehead.

"We're going'a need an eighth hell to fit him in!" Grenn shouted.

Alliser and the brother approached Jon and the other recruits. The man's lips parted as they gasped for air—each breath sent his second chin billowing beneath his first.

"Tell them your name," Alliser commanded.

"Samwell Tarly," the young man spoke between heavy breaths. "Of Horn Hill. Well, I was from Horn Hill, but… I've come to take the black."

"Come to take the black pudding?!" Another brother, Rast, jested, causing several of his brothers to chuckle.

"Well you couldn't be any worse than you look," Alliser commented, looking at Samwell with a look of disgust.

Jon knew Samwell probably wasn't very good with a sword—as Alliser seemed to predict—but he had sympathy for the man. Jon had never struggled with weight himself, in fact as a boy he was taunted by Robb and Theon for his prepubescent scrawniness, but he was acquainted with the struggles of obesity.

In Winterfell, a nobleman's daughter had developed a crush on Jon directly after he'd sprouted above six feet. The girl was named Etta, though Theon called her Eat-a for her weight. At the ball thrown for Robb's seventeenth birthday, Etta had approached Jon hoping he'd dance with her. Immediately after her proposal, Theon laughed aloud and warned Jon not to, for if she stepped on his toes she'd surely crush them. Upon seeing the hopeless veil of insecurity mask the attractive features between Etta's round cheeks, Jon scolded Theon and danced with the girl for most of the night.

"Rast," Alliser recaptured the attention of the taunting brother. "See what he can do."

As Rast pulled his sword from its sheath and positioned himself at one edge of the sparring circle, Samwell steadied himself. If it were not from the sweaty and nervous squeezing of Samwell's blade's hilt, Jon would have seen him as daunting. Samwell lowered his chin and his brow bone cast a black shadow over his dark eyes.

As expected, when Rast slammed his sword—with little etiquette, Jon might add—down onto Samwell's large armor, the round man shouted and immediately fell in a heaving pile onto the ground.

"I yield!" Samwell cried with his hand in the air. "Please, have mercy! No more!"

"On your feet!" Alliser ordered. "Pick up your sword."

Unfortunately for Samwell, he took too long to begin rolling to his bottom so he could stand up for Alliser's liking, and so he received Alliser's punishment for such a terrible crime: "Hit him until he gets up."

Rast continually slapped Samwell's armor with his sword, causing Samwell to shout effeminately. Though Jon knew it was up to Samwell to clean himself up and get into shape, he grew angry with Alliser's unnecessarily harsh treatment. When Jon looked into Samwell's twisted, portly face, he could see that Samwell had not been forced to the Wall. The man escaped to the Wall, just as Jon had, because he was wanted no place else.

The volume of Samwell's exclamations climbed, and the man's every cry sounded like an echo of Jon's own struggles in his head. Jon stepped forward, ready to defend Samwell, but a brother held him back. However, Jon escaped the second time he leapt forward.

"Enough!" Jon shouted, causing Rast to halt his slaps with the sword and causing Samwell to halt his cries from the sword. "He yielded."

Jon gripped Samwell's meaty arm and helped him up. "Looks like the bastard's in love!" Alliser stated with a smile. A superficial annoyance with Samwell's cowardly whimpers made Jon shove Samwell harshly in line. "Alright then, Lord Snow, you wish to defend your lady love? Let's make it an exercise."

Jon nearly rolled his eyes at Alliser's persistent torment of whatever he could get his hands on.

"You two," Alliser gestured to two brothers standing several feet from him and Rast. "Three of you ought to be sufficient to make Lady Piggy squeal—all you've got to do is get past the _bastard,_ " Alliser emphasized Jon's status, as though he were not yet aware.

"You sure you want to do this?" Jon asked Grenn and Pyp.

"No," Grenn immediately answered, and Pyp agreed. In spite of their reluctance to complete the exercise, Rast came flying forward with a sloppy slice.

Within little time, the three brothers were on the ground. When Grenn stood, Jon took a quick step toward him before the brother shouted: "Yield, yield, yield."

"We're done for today," Alliser decided. "Go clean the armory—that's all you're good for anyway," he said as he walked away.

When Rast strode by Jon, he looked at him sourly.

"Did he hurt you?" Samwell asked with a timid face.

"I've had worse," Jon shrugged.

With guilt, Samwell looked down at Jon's chunky armory. "You can call me Sam, if you want… My mother called me Sam—" He added uselessly.

"It isn't going to get any easier, you know. You're going to have to defend yourself."

"Why didn't you get up and fight?" Grenn demanded.

"I—I wanted to," Sam muttered. "But I just couldn't."

"Why not?" Grenn asked.

Sam looked toward the ground, looking for some place else to go so he could escape from the truth: "I'm a coward," he admitted. "My father always says so, too—that I'm a coward."

"The Wall's no place for cowards—" Jon reasoned.

"You're right, I know that," Sam rushed. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to thank you."

With that, Sam hobbled off with his sword in hand. Jon looked after him as he went. Grenn whined about others thinking them as cowardly as Sam because they were seen talking to Sam; Pyp taunted him. Over the fighting heads of Pyp and Grenn, Jon wondered if life for Sam at Horn Hill was so hard that even someone like him could only find sanctuary at the Wall.


	2. Chapter 2

II. ROSEMARY

 _several months later_

"And would y'like anything else with that, sir?" Rosemary smiled brightly.

The old man captured her hand in his own lone hand; he lost his other in Greyjoy's Rebellion. Rosemary was uncomfortable with the amount of knowledge she held regarding the life of Mister Grendine, but she only was so informed because he was her customer every other evening.

Mister Grendine pressed his frail lips to her knuckles, a habit Rosemary had learned over the past months was typical in the Ringed Ladies' Tavern. However, Mister Grendine always left his lips upon her fingers longer than he should.

"Miss Rosemary, have I ever sung to you the Song of the Sea-lady?" Mister Grendine asked. He had sung it to Rosemary, he did at least once a week, but Rosemary knew he would not leave the aged chantey alone until she let him sing it to her.

"I don't think so, Mister Grendine. Would y'sing it t'me?"

Mister Grendine smiled widely, his eyes glittering beneath its delicate wrinkles.

 _O Sea-lady, Sea-lady, won't you sing me a song?_

 _I'll sing you one now—but I've the words wrong._

 _'Twixt the battering waves and the grumbling men,_

 _it seems nothing would be sweeter than_

 _to hear your voice again._

 _O Sea-lady, Sea-lady, won't you sing me a song?_

 _Sing to me of your lips and the hair you wear long._

 _'Tis the softness of snow and the splendor of sunrise,_

 _that do not match your beauty—_

 _not even just that of your eyes._

 _O Sea-lady, Sea-lady, won't you sing me a song?_

 _Seems the time has arrived for me to say 'so long'._

 _I'll remember your whistle and your sweet midnight hum,_

 _I just ask you to sing my name_

 _for all the men to come._

The crowd that had accumulated around the old man cheered; the barmaids delivered him a mug of ale free of price. In the midst of the mirth, Rosemary felt a tug at her elbow. She turned to see it was Breeda, the middle-aged barmaid who was providing Rosemary's carriage out of the tavern and to Winterfell.

Breeda had provided Rosemary with room and board in exchange for daily work at the tavern. Rosemary shared a room above the tavern with two other barmaids who followed the same exchange. One of the girls, Karyna, was quite literally Rosemary's ticket north. The royal tax collector that routinely swept through the meagerly-populated northern land in which the Ringed Ladies' Tavern was located spent a night in another room above the tavern with Karyna every time he made his trip. Karyna was beautiful; her hair was like wheat and her eyes as mystic as the sea beneath the night sky. The royal tax collector, Lord Auswald, was a skittish lad with a crooked spine and an unusual large libido; according to Karyna, he did just about whatever she said.

When the time came about and Karyna had done her duty with Lord Auswald, the royal tax collector would make room for Rosemary in his carriage—which rode north to Winterfell on the Kingsroad. According to both Breeda and Karyna, Lord Auswald could arrive at any time. But when the time came, they said, Rosemary would have no choice but to drop her dish and fly.

"It's time," Breena hurriedly said, yanking Rosemary's arm and pulling her from the crowd. Before Rosemary could process, Breeda was pulling the apron from around Rosemary's slim waist and wrapping an old cloak around her angular shoulders. When Breeda held Rosemary's exorbitant furs in her hand and planned to place them, too, atop her arms, Rosemary rejected them and smiled at her. The reason for Rosemary's running had been a falsehood, yet Breeda had unknowingly tended to her because of them all along. The least she could do was give the barmaid her furs.

"Sell them. Thereafter, you'll never know the hardships I have seen you face since you have taken me in," Rosemary spoke quietly. She was relieved to release the peasant's cadence from her voice; since living above the Ringed Ladies' Tavern, her polished tongue had to be tarnished.

Breeda's green-apple eyes watered over and an ear-to-ear smile ran across her face. She placed a long kiss on Rosemary's smooth forehead until she was torn away from the girl, who ran out of the tavern with her hood covering her golden-brown head. Breeda watched Rosemary ride away in the tax collector's carriage from the door of the tavern as Mister Grendine finished his second singing of his favorite sea chantey.

 _I just ask you to sing my name_

 _for all men to come._

 _…_

 _a month and a half later_

Lord Auswald took a dripping bite into his green apple. Rosemary watched in masked disgust as the yellowish juice trickled from his crooked teeth to his shaved chin. A droplet of the juice splattered onto the royal yellow cloth of his garments. An ochre stain was left in the apple juice's place.

"You're quite quiet today, dear Rosemary. Something the matter?" Lord Auswald looked up from his book and asked.

 _Yes, something is wrong,_ she thought as the wheels of the carriage faltered on the path and Rosemary was sent crashing into the carriage door. _I am sick of this dingy carriage, I am sick of traveling, and I am sick of you._

"Just a bit tired," she sighed with a small, forged smile. Lord Auswald looked to her at his side and lay his small hand atop her dressed knee. Through the dark garments he dressed her in, he lightly squeezed the bone of her knees and the skin above it. Rosemary had to look out the small carriage window to hide her grimace.

She figured she should have been aware of what was to come in the carriage when she'd learned of _how_ exactly she'd gotten there. Though Rosemary had preserved her maidenhood, Lord Auswald had tried his very hardest to resume the relationship he had with Karyna through Rosemary. Lord Auswald would not force himself upon her, but he always held her close as a man does his wife. When the carriage stopped so the travelers could spend a night beneath an unmoving roof, Lord Auswald would tell the innkeeper Rosemary was his wife and he'd share a room with her. However, Rosemary was grateful for the transportation Lord Auswald illegally allowed, and she was not entirely sure to why she was so grateful, as life at the Ringed Ladies' Tavern wasn't strenuous by any means.

Regardless of this, Rosemary ashamedly felt as though she had some reason to head northwards. She was not an avid follower of the intricate workings of the spirit and fate, yet she felt she was intended to go to the North. After all, she was not wanted in the Riverlands—from where she was sent away for gold by her own father; her Aunt Lysa had never permitted Rosemary visit in the Capital for a reason unknown to Rosemary, and she didn't expect she'd be allowed in the Vale either now that Jon Arryn was dead; anywhere else Rosemary would have no place. In the North, Rosemary at least had her Aunt Catelyn and Uncle Ned in Winterfell, along with the cousins she had only ever met once.

"Do you think it will be much longer to Winterfell?" Rosemary asked, looking again at Lord Auswald's squirting and sloshing apple-chewing.

"Just a matter of hours, my sweet," he said and tightened his grip around the space of leg just above her knee.

…

 _several hours later_

Lord Auswald had had his throat slit upon stepping out of the carriage. Winterfell had fallen; to whom Rosemary was not sure, though she was sure she was glad poor Lord Auswald had hidden her in an imperceptible back compartment of the carriage when they arrived in Winterfell.

 _Where has my aunt gone? Her children? Uncle Ned?_ Rosemary asked herself, hearing the coachman fall to the ground after a longsword found his abdomen.

There was no way out of the compartment she hid in aside from the door within the carriage's central compartment; however, she heard that exit she so longed for slam shut. Whilst Rosemary had sat in the central compartment, she remembered Lord Auswald's dry hands letting the window's thin shades drop to hide the carriage's contents. If Rosemary were to leave her compartment for the central compartment, her presence would perhaps not be identified.

With a silent turn of the brass knob, Rosemary opened the compartment's small door and saw an unoccupied carriage. The horses drawing the carriage were hit with men's gloved hands to move forward, so the carriage shook slightly as Rosemary crawled out of the hidden compartment.

As she hid behind the carriage's door, she moved the curtain which fell over the door's window indiscernibly—just to get a peak at the world rushing by her. There were two men dressed in mail and hard-shell armor walking beside the carriage. Behind the men were rows of quaint houses made of long, dark logs and bulky cutouts of stone. Thatched roofs feathered the tops of many houses, and blankets of snow seemed to indeterminably coat the straw and reed of the roofs. Like the wash behind a village scene, granite mountains climbed to the sky nearly a hundred feet. Only in Rosemary's hazy memories from childhood could she remember the complex behind those two walls. The one structure she could vividly remember was the glass garden which sat just along the inner wall. Rosemary had spent a long evening in the greenhouse waltzing around with a pout of confusion on her lips; whilst her cousin Sansa played in the courtyard, Rosemary found herself deeply interested in the mysteries behind the heated garden.

 _Are the smallfolk right?_ She remembered asking herself long ago. _Is there a dragon beneath Winterfell that breathes steam into its very pipes?_

The carriage slowed and the men departed, redrawing Rosemary's attention to the trouble she had found herself in. She waited for the promise of lasting silence, some indicator of her safety, though she really could not think of any foretoken that may be entirely indicative of safety.

Following a long and bellowing breath, Rosemary opened the door to the carriage and shut it behind her as quietly as she could. Careful not to disturb any sticks or leaves beneath her feet, Rosemary approached the two horses drawing the carriage. Though she was not entirely sure of their breeds, Rosemary felt as though she had ridden horses similar to those drawing the carriage back in the Riverlands. The two horses were built for endurance, thankfully—with sculpted bones and muscles, arched necks, and elegant countenances. One was the color of silver, the other of bronze. When Rosemary placed her hands on the two steeds' snouts, the one with a coat of bronze pressed his nose into the palm of her hand.

Rosemary clumsily unstrapped the stallion from the carriage, as this was a task she had never before done and only watched stablemen do before from a distance. Whilst Rosemary loosened the final straps that attached the carriage to the horse, the shout of a man rang loud and clear in her ears. She could not pin his words, though, as she threw herself atop the long back of the horse before she could truly listen.

Rosemary kicked her heels into the horse's belly. She realized the horse was well-trained when it took off in a flying gallop. Though men quickly climbed the back of their own horses, they were in no place to catch up with Rosemary and the horse she had selected. Soon enough, Rosemary and her stallion disappeared into the wolfswood.

And the only thing Ramsay Bolton saw of Rosemary Tully was the stroke of her hair vanishing into those of the evergreen and the black brier—as well as the flick of her chestnut gelding's tail.

…

 _eight days later_

Rosemary had named her horse Daybreak, as the colors of the sun ripening the night sky seemed to refect eternally in his coat. Even in the ever-hungry and silent sylvan sea, dawn could be caught in the color of the horse's coat. The eyes of wolves even shied away at his brightness beneath the moon—weaving through the tall trees like the wind whistling through grasses.

To say the very least, Rosemary was glad Daybreak's endurance could withstand the ride through the wolfswood. She was unsure whether he was so diligent because he was trained to act so or because he was scared of what came out of the shadows the trees of the wolfswood cast when he stopped. They would only break to rest and to sleep for several-hour periods, and then they would be off again.

Both Daybreak's and Rosemary's ribs were all too close to their thin skins when the two came upon Last Hearth. Rosemary was unsure if she would be welcomed at the seat of the Umbers—she doubted not, but her and Daybreak were in no place to wonder. The wolfswood was full of predators ready to nip at Daybreak's heels, and the water Rosemary had carried on her waist was now empty.

A new kind of cold wrapped around the thinning shoulders of Rosemary like a frosted shroud. The coat Breeda had provided no longed sufficed—Rosemary's skin was a shade of periwinkle and her body shook like the very winds that racked her. In spite of the frosted air, the only direction Rosemary felt was right to follow was that of north.

Small houses of timber were thrown like dice across the white land that surrounded the castle of the Last Hearth. The village was small, though the people lumbering about were not. The tales of the Umbers were true; even smallfolk were towering beasts. Dark of skin and long of legs; the men were far above six feet, and the women too.

Trotting through the hamlet on a horse once large to her but now small, Rosemary felt like a different creature from those around her. In spite of this, they didn't pay her much attention with their dark eyes. All they saw was a dark-cloaked traveler, shaking in a wind not familiar to her. Rosemary grew quickly jealous of how easy they found the weather. Both female and male smallfolk walked around the barren grounds with exposed skin and relatively thin garments.

A single fire flickered between cottages, posing as a center to the disorganized village. Rosemary slipped off Daybreak's hard-muscled back and led him hurriedly to the fire. At first, she nearly burnt her bony, pale hands, but her body felt warmth again. A week between the frozen lumber of the wolfswood had nearly erased the notion of warmth from Rosemary's mind.

Once Rosemary had thawed the violet blood hardly flowing through her veins, she led Daybreak by hand from one house to the next, searching for someplace to stay for a night or even just a supper. Gratefully, Rosemary discovered an alehouse not far from the fire with a front door climbing eight feet high. On the left side of the alehouse was a stable that provided enough shelter for Daybreak to be kept safe from the weather. All the stables were empty, aside from one large wolf tied up at the neck. Rosemary had never seen a wolf so large, and with hair as pale as the moon. She imaged it was domesticated, as it remained rested on the ground peacefully when Rosemary and Daybreak passed by, but she was not sure if even an Umber could tame such a beast. The wolf was just inches short of the size of a pony, with a snout as long as the length of her elbow to the tips of her fingers.

Rosemary chose the stall as far away from the wolf as possible; even though the wolf seemed docile, she did not risk the hopelessness and sorrow losing Daybreak to the wolf would engender. After tying Daybreak up, she slid her hands across the round ball of his long jaw and kissed the faint dappling of white on his nose. He was a remarkably amicable stallion; that, or he was merely fond of Rosemary. However, seeing the trip through the wolfswood she had made him endure, she would be shocked if the latter were true.

Inside the alehouse it wasn't as warm as it was inside the Ringed Ladies' Tavern, though this was not a shock to Rosemary. The smallfolk of the Last Hearth seemed almost unaffected by the weather. Several crowds of women and men were messily spread across the large, long room, though this seemed habit of the people, as their town was as miscellaneously arrayed as their peoples in the alehouse. Rosemary walked to the very end of one of the three long tables and sat herself so her bottom was just at the edge of the seat.

She was hardly waited upon, but she did manage to get some water, bread, and several apples. In the corner of Daybreak's stall in the stables had been a limited stack of hay; perhaps that and the apples would soothe his appetite. When Rosemary left the alehouse, she meandered the village aimlessly after feeding Daybreak his apples. She could not think of what to do; how else to survive. Surely, she knew, it was just a matter of time before her and Daybreak keeled over in a pile of dusty bones, horse and human alike.

Although hardly any, Rosemary had scavenged a few silver stags off of Lord Auswald—and even one golden dragon. She had spent most of her stags on the food, yet the one golden dragon remained. Though the coin hung heavy in her pocket with the many leisurely things she could have bought with it as she would have back at Riverrun, she found a place for it immediately once she saw the glittering of metal in a small store window. Slender blades and skinny arrows were strung from the window in display; if Rosemary could only get her hands on something, she knew she could get herself some real sustenance.

Though Rosemary's father, Lord Wendell Tully, _had_ sold his own daughter off to the Manderlys for glittering bags of hands, dragons, and legacy, he still did believe his daughter should know what to do if she were lost in the world. Instinctively, Lord Wendell did not care much for the degree to which Rosemary performed in a ladylike manor; he did not care about sullied dresses and boy's trousers beneath the skirts; he did not care about tangled hair and the occasional words of a sailor slipping his daughter's mouth. Lord Wendell knew Rosemary would be enough for any man just with her radiant countenance, and with this he was right; he knew that from the time she was a child. And as consequence of this treatment, Lord Wendell taught his daughter how to hunt, how to hold a sword and a bow and how to string an arrow, how to gallop on horses, and even how to use the knowledge her septas provided her with. He even taught her the Old Tongue of the First Men, and he told Rosemary's septas to teach her High Valyrian.

Behind the blades in the window, several candles granted amber occupancy; Rosemary was unsure to whether one could walk in or not, yet she did so anyway. The cabin appeared vacant at first glance, and most smallfolk of the village Rosemary wandered would not notice anything more upon second glance. But because Rosemary was just the same size as the little man behind the whetstone table, she did notice something opposite of vacancy upon first glance. The man was small, old, leathery in skin and grey in hair; his slender fingers danced skillfully across the blade he held at its hilt. It was much to large for him—weighing down his lap and causing raised veins to rise upon the pale skin of his forearms.

"Welcome," he spoke in a croaking voice from place behind his table. "Not every day a Southerner winds up in the Last Village," he spoke.

 _How did he know I was a Southerner?_ Rosemary asked herself, turning herself so he might only see the bafflement tainting her features in profile.

"You don't have the look of the north on you, child. You're not from Last Village or the Last Hearth, and I don't think anyone with knowledge of the north would pay this place a visit willingly," he chuckled, revealing several spots of black between otherwise healthy teeth.

Without an answer for him, Rosemary dove her hand into the depths of her cloak's pocket and pulled out the golden dragon. She held it before her fingers and the man squinted his pale blue eyes to sharpen his view of the currency. "What can I get for this?"

He looked at Rosemary's raised, arched eyebrows and then back to the coin. "That blade right there." The old man pointed to a small and unimpressive blade hanging in a shadowed corner. However it was only small by contrast of the other swords along the walls, which were meant for the people of the Last Village—what the old man had called the congregation of smallfolk surrounding the Last Hearth. With one swing, Rosemary was sure the hilt would fly from even the tightest grip of her hand.

"There is nothing else?" She asked.

He leant back into his wooden chair with a stiff back, then placed the longsword across his slender legs. "A lesson."

"A lesson?"

"Yes. If you won't accept a blade such as that," he gestured to that in the corner, "you know it is all you can afford but not suited to be wielded by someone your size. You know blades, how they should fit, how they should swing, weigh, _cut—_ but if you were any better than you are now you'd already have a sword, wouldn't you? You need to practice more. Give me the golden dragon and I'll get you a lesson; the rest you'll work for here. I can't hire these lumbering Umbers, they're too big and brawny."

Rosemary pressed the top of the coin into the palm of her hand, surely leaving a print of the serpentine dragon in the pink and impressionable skin. "I have a horse."

"I have a stable."

"Where would I rest and how would I eat?"

"My wife rents out one of the chambers of our cottage to travelers. You may sup with us."

Rosemary bit the inside of her bottom lip and scratched her jagged fingernail against the face of the coin; the soft scraping sound serving as a reminder for her lack of hygiene. She then dropped the coin onto the whetstone before him.

…

 _several months later_

"Faster, faster! You're a woman; you're small! Have you seen the men who wield swords like the one you're holding?" Master Emett shouted. For such a seemingly hoary man, he swung his sword with the speed of a python snatching up prey.

Rosemary grunted, feeling the sweat trickle down the side of her cheek. The Last Village was as frozen a wasteland as always, but Master Emett showed her one way to stay warm: working her tirelessly. He was not a cruel man, but strictly-disciplined and painstakingly diligent. Rosemary considered Breeda to be severe when she worked in the Ringed Ladies' Tavern, but she was a breeze now in the eyes of Rosemary. Master Emett only let Rosemary have a meal and gain access to the cot in his cottage if she'd done six hours with the sword and six hours in the shop. In spite of the difficulty of his schedule for her, Rosemary had remained grateful. There had been many evenings when she accused him of sadism and unjust harshness, yet the next morning she always apologized. Aside from the meals he gave her and the place to rest he provided, she was becoming an exceptional swordsman.

It was a dance—jumping away from his flying blade. She had never seen a man move like that—so rapid and abounding. She had learned the dance well, but she was just stepping over his toes. She had to learn the moves too—after all, what is a dance without a partner?

With one particularly flaming slice, Rosemary ducked and missed his blade by a hair's breadth. "Uh-uh-uh," she heard Master Emett's portent for an upcoming scolding. "And slice. There goes you head."

Rosemary heard him slip his sword back into the sheath at his waist. "It was too fast!"

"Yes, well—why don't you use that excuse after your first opponent slices off that pretty head of yours. Oh, wait—you won't have a head!"

Rosemary looked at the ground with culpability; it was a poor excuse, and she knew it. "What should I have done, Master Emett?" She asked earnestly and reassumed her fighting stance. He nodded his head in acceptance with her resilience and effort.

"I'm glad you asked, child," he said as he redrew his sword from its leather socket.

…

 _several months later_

In the Last Village, the men of Rosemary's father had arrived. Within the hour of their arrival to the Last Village, Rosemary was gone. She had fought for silver stags the two months prior to her sudden departure and won every spar. She left half of her winnings in a small, tied piece of cheesecloth on the stool beside Master Emett's and his wife, Sala's, bed.

She now lived in a room with a woman and her baby in a brothel in Mole's Town. Rosemary barely paid for the room with the money she had left from the fights. She was confused to find most of the town beneath grounds, where the earth made things dirty and dewy. She had had no choice but to leave Daybreak in the stables in Upper Mole's Town; the underground was no place for a horse.

Rosemary lived with a layer of grime covering her body at all times; as did her roommate, Gilly. The only one in the room who was washed often was Gilly's baby—who Gilly called Little Sam for a reason she had yet to explain to Rosemary. The layer of grime kept Rosemary's beauty hidden from the sneaking eyes of men who had come to dig for their precious buried treasure; however, Rosemary had encountered her fair amount of near-assaults in the brothel.

Gilly complained often of the men from the Night's Watch that visited the brothel; Rosemary found this odd. She didn't know much of the Night's Watch, but she did know that they were supposed to remain celibate—or at least that was what she had heard. It was that vow the brothers broke so frequently that bothered Gilly.

"Why did you come to Mole's Town, Gilly?" Rosemary asked that evening. Her and Gilly cleaned and worked in the small kitchen, which fed the whores time-to-time when the women finally abandoned their temporary bouts of self-starvation.

Gilly sliced a skinny carrot with brown skin. The food the two received for making into meals was always old, often rotted, and consistently poorly harvested. The vegetables they cut and put into soup were a quarter of the size of those Rosemary had seen made and served to her back at Riverrun.

"I had no place else to go," Gilly responded calmly, but hesitantly. Gilly didn't like to talk about herself, and neither did Rosemary. For that reason, the two girls seemed to talk about everything aside from their pasts. In spite of this unspoken policy, Rosemary was in an odd mood that evening. "What about you?"

"I had nowhere else to go, too," Rosemary answered. If Gilly wouldn't tell, neither would Rosemary.

"You must've come from a place well-off. You talk like a queen, you know?" Gilly commented. Rosemary hadn't assumed the smallfolken dialect she had at the Ringed Ladies' Tavern; she didn't expect anyone this far north to care enough. Rosemary was surprised to hear that Gilly had been able to discern her nobility through her tongue, though. Gilly had a way of speaking where she pronounced words wholly in her mouth, as though she were slightly unsure of them. Rosemary knew Gilly was poorly educated from this; thus, she didn't expect Gilly to be able to detect dialects. However, it appeared she was wrong; alas, she was still not as calculating as Master Emett was.

Rosemary only laughed in response to Gilly's note, as though she found her words absurd. She said nothing else of the topic: "I have a strange feeling about this day. Or this night, perhaps."

"Like what?" Gilly asked, looking up from her carrots. Whilst Gilly was preparing the carrots, Rosemary cut the turnips.

"I don't know really. I've had this feeling before—usually the night of I have a strange dream," Rosemary said casually, as though her words were only silly thoughts.

"One of my sisters once told me she saw the future in her dreams," Gilly connected. "I was the only one that believed her."

"Did her dreams really reveal the future?" Rosemary asked.

"She said they were dreams of the distant future, so none of them came true whilst she was still around," Gilly explained. "She died when she had her first baby."

Rosemary nodded her head, think of her own dreams. They hadn't ever come true either, and they were too ominous and abstract for Rosemary to pin as visions of the future. She wasn't one to denounce magic or divinity, but she did not think she was any sort of seer. Perhaps some of her dreams had revealed the future, but Rosemary could not remember them. Back in Riverrun, she had written her dreams in a leatherback journal a septa had made for her for twelfth name day; she'd left it behind when she departed for White Harbor, however.

"You had a sister?" Rosemary asked.

"Oh, lots and lots. Most were half-sisters."

"Your father sounds like a fickle man," Rosemary laughed.

She expected Gilly to laugh, but she hadn't. The girl in rags beside her poured her cut carrots into the boiling broth in a cauldron above the fire. "Did you have any sisters?"

With ease, Rosemary answered: "No, but I had an elder brother. He is dead now."

Gilly nodded with a simple degree of understanding, yet Rosemary found that understanding superficial. Her brother, Luid, had been found with an arrow in his back, floating along the Tumblestone. At least Gilly understood why her sister died; no Tully ever knew why their heir had been murdered.

…

 _A boot of doeskin slammed against the white earth, with the spikes of canine teeth holding the boot's dweller stiff to the ground. A dark body, a foreigner was the dweller, with wild hair and garments made of patched hides. Surrounding them a makeshift coalition of warriors just as wild as each one's hair. Men and women fought beside one another, wielding their flails and axes and arrows side-by-side._

 _The drop of Upper Mole's Town into Lower—that beneath the earth—was approached by the peoples. They dropped with ease into the earth and raided; spilt blood across the muddy ground and allowing no lives to remain in the subterranean city._

 _A woman spoke, a woman the dreamer knew from many, many moons past. A gnarled cane stepped with her slow feet, assisting her hunched back. Beside her feet trailed her long white hair—longer than her body's height. And then she spoke:_

 _"Daughter of death—dragonfly daughter, open your eye to the beast that hails from beyond the wall high. The wood whispers in my ear of the girl that should hear me, the girl that should see too. Climb out of the earth to your king, whose title is as northern as his place, whose promise is as precious as his blade and as deadly as its pommel, and whose due is greater than that of the white dragon. Give him his song, and light with him the fire of life."_

Rosemary's cornflower blue eyes rapidly split open. The breath was heavy in her lungs, making her chest float upward then downward at a quick pace. Nothing had woken her, not even the baby Sam whimpered and cried. Gilly slept soundly on her side not far from Rosemary on the ground. The world was quiet around Rosemary, but her mind was not.

 _Open your eye to the beast that hails from beyond the wall high—_ Rosemary remembered well. Unlike most of her other dreams, this would not be one she would ever forget.

The sound of an owl hooting sweetened the disgruntled sounds coming from the floor below Rosemary—which consisted of carnal grunts and cries, drunken chuckles and belches, and creaking floorboards and bedposts. Rosemary sat up, she was too disgruntled not to wake Gilly.

Rosemary pulled down the covers to her cot and crawled over to Gilly, who slept with Baby Sam right beside her. Rosemary shook her slender shoulder quickly, horrified by the sound of the owl for a reason she couldn't understand.

Gilly woke quickly, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes: "What is it?"

"Something bad's going to happen, Gilly," Rosemary explained poorly. Though she was sure Gilly would just shake her head and go back to sleep, the girl was suddenly captured by the hooting of the owl. She stood and walked to the cracks between the wood of the walls, peering out with one big, brown eye to see the owl. It hooted again.

"You're right. We need to leave," Gilly rushed. She scooped up Baby Sam and wrapped one of the furs from the bed around him. Rosemary picked up her cloak from the floor and tightly fastened it around her shoulders, pulling the hood above her head so it cast a long shadow over her feminine features.

"What is happening, Gilly?" Rosemary begged. She was petrified by the voice of the old woman echoing in her head, and how it forewarned her of a conflict so immediate.

"Wildlings," was her short and daunting answer.

One of the whores both Gilly and Rosemary had come to hate drunkenly tried to stop the two and the baby on their way out of the brothel, but her trials were in vain. Gilly ran with a determination Rosemary had never seen before, and Rosemary ran with a fear she had never felt grow so foreign and wild in her heart before.

"Where are we going, Gilly?!" Rosemary shouted as they ran through the snowflakes bitterly hitting each of their cheeks and foreheads. In the far distance—so far Rosemary did not know how—Rosemary heard the sound of a knife slice open a throat and a body fall to the ground in snow reddened by its own blood.

Gilly gave Rosemary an answer she did not want to hear: "The Wall!"

…

SAMWELL

A light snow danced through the air as Samwell departed from the library in Castle Black. For a night at the Wall it was particularly mild of temperature, but a foul feeling drifted in the air that Sam simply could not pin. He assumed it was a fragment of the everlasting guilt that blossomed once he'd heard of the sacking at Mole's Town.

 _I'll never forgive myself…_ Sam thought, reminding himself of the burden he must bear for the rest of his life. _I'm the reason Gilly and little Sam are dead._

In the distance, Sam heard Pyp's boyish voice. He could not hear exactly what he was saying, so he stopped at the top of the wooden staircase to listen.

"I'm sorry miss, but I cannot open the gates for anybody. It's my orders!" Pyp exclaimed, drawing Sam's attention. Sam looked to the gates of Castle Black to see Pyp on duty and talking to an outsider through the small window in the gate.

"You don't understand! They killed everyone!" Sam heard a familiar voice beg. "They killed everyone but us and my baby!"

With this, Sam raced down the stairs and headed to the gate as fast as his stout legs could carry him.

"They're out there!" Sam's beloved Gilly continued. "We saw them on the way here. They may have seen us, they may have followed us—please!" She cried.

"I'm sorry, I can't," Sam heard Pyp argue feebly.

"If they find us out here, you don't know what they'll do!"

Sam ran across the sparring circle. "Pyp! Open the gate!"

"I _can't_ ," he urged between his yellow teeth.

"Sam—is that you?!" Gilly cried, clutching the cloak around her head tightly in elation.

"Yes, it is," Sam answered with determination.

"Thorne gave me strict order to not open the gate!" Pyp told Sam.

"Oh, Pyp," Sam scoffed. "Open the _fucking_ gate!"

Pyp hesitated before slamming shut the window of the gate. He rushed to the lock at the gate to undo it hurriedly. "I've never heard you curse before."

"Yes, well… Best get used to it," Sam replied.

The door unlocked with a heavy series of clunks and creaks of rusted metal, then eventually swung open enough for the guests to enter. Gilly ran for Sam with her son in her arms, and the second traveler, covered entirely in a heavy, black cloak, slipped in with a horse in hand before Pyp could shut the gate.

Gilly panted in Samwell's arms as he assured himself: "You're alright? You're alright," he looked to Baby Sam in Gilly's arms and sighed, thinking of all the baby had already lived through. "Of course you are, my brave, little fella."

"It was _horrible,_ " Gilly told him.

"I'm so, so sorry, Gilly. I didn't know until I got back—"

" _Don't_ let them send me away, Sam."

"Never—"

"I know there's no women allowed!" Gilly spoke.

"Anyone who tries to throw you out will be having words with me."

Gilly looked to the cloaked stranger standing behind her like a shadow. "And this is Rosemary—you can't let her leave either. If she goes, I go too—you hear?"

Samwell nodded, looking to the girl called Rosemary. She pushed the dark hood off her head and exposed her light hair to the light of the fire, which turned its cinnamon shade into a brown bronze. By the milky color of her skin and the light in her eyes Sam could tell this woman, Rosemary, was not like Gilly. She wasn't lovely in the special way Gilly was to Sam, she had the face of a highborn beauty—the type Sam was supposed to marry when he grew tall and strong, enough so he could wield Heartsbane. Though Rosemary was dirtied by the harsh life found in a brothel, the nobility could not hide from Sam in her delicately beautiful face.

Sam looked back to Gilly, eternally astounded by the warmth in her brown eyes. No matter how beautiful Rosemary or any other woman may be, Sam knew he could only ever love Gilly. "From now on, wherever you go, I go, too."

And then, the horn blew.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who followed/favorited/commented!** **I hope you enjoy this chapter and don't find it too slow-moving. I know it's a bit of a drag, but I had to make it so I could show everyone what's going on and how Rosemary even gets to the Wall (because it is _very_ far north and she starts only at Moat Cailin). This chapter is also important for Rosemary's character development, as it shows where she learned to fight and it exposes her to the world she's been isolated from pretty much her whole life. Also, ****Jon will be coming up in the next chapter, and he should be there for most of the rest! Thanks again and enjoy. (:**


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